20 Questions That Helped Me Take A Leap Of Faith And Change CareersWritten by Suzanne Beardsmore
When I was working more than 45 hours a week in a job with a two hour commute each day, challenge of a new husband, new step children, two beagle dogs and maintaining a home was more than a stretch! Something had to give, and unfortunately I was one starting to not be able to hold it together!It was a Catch 22 situation. We had an expensive home near city center with large mortgage costs, which demanded feeding through joint incomes. So we took (what seemed) a gigantic leap of faith and sold house, buying a less expensive one further into suburbs. This house is actually on more land and better than our ‘old’ one. The best thing is upkeep is less, house larger and area more pleasant. The next big leap was for me to get fully involved in our home business, which my husband had been working for six months. At first I couldn’t see how a home business could keep me interested after mergers, acquisitions, share floats and working with some of largest corporations in our country (and world). This really was a worrying point for me. However, I soon discovered a home business could contain all excitement, victories and thrills of my previous work, without stress, backstabbing and hassles from people. For me challenge is interesting and results rewarding. So, to help those who are toying with idea of making a change, rest assured a home business can be a great vehicle for you to gain work life balance and enjoy your family as well as make a good income. One of great things about many home businesses, is that you can get them started while you are in your current job and make a full time transition when you and your business is ready. You can take things at your own pace….after all, it’s your business!
| | Using Cover Letters and Customized ResumesWritten by Scott Brown
I'd like to briefly discuss concept of "resume targeting." This is practice of customizing your resume for a specific audience. Targeting with resumes is same concept as advertisers customizing their message to a particular demographic. Recently, many big brand marketers have started customizing their messages to make their commercials more interesting so people using TiVo don't fast forward past them and so they stand out from other commercials. For example, Mercedes Benz recently started running commercials in New York City where a couple drives first to La Guardia and then to JFK Airport. For average viewer who sees a few hours of commercials a week, one that mentions two local places they're familiar with will stand out in their mind. The same goes for recruiters and employers who may receive hundreds of resumes a week. If they get one that's customized for their interests, it has a better chance of standing out.It's a smart idea to have several versions of your resume available for different types of positions you're applying for. For example, if you're applying for jobs in both insurance and financial services industries, you could have two different resumes available with two slightly different Objective statements. Further customizing your resume for specific position you're applying for makes sense if it's a position you're really interested in and you want to stand out from pack. Keep in mind though that if you're sending out 100 resumes, it may not pay to spend 5-10 minutes customizing each one since landing a job is also partly a numbers game. Cover letters can be a powerful way to establish a relationship with potential employer - especially if you haven't met person yet. They also provide more room for you to discuss synergies between your goals and theirs than is afforded in a resume. The goal of a cover letter is to establish a personal relationship. To that end, a cover letter needs to at least appear that it was customized for specific person it's being sent to. A good cover letter will reference name of company it is being sent to and position title. Even if you're sending out a lot of cover letters, this can be accomplished using Mail Merge function in Microsoft Word.
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